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Mountain Pass Rare Earth Technology Tour

3.
It all starts with the Mountain Pass rare earth ore
body, which is one of the world’s largest, richest and
most readily processable rare earth resources. Its ore
grade averages about 8% TREO, and contains all
naturally occurring lanthanide REs plus Yttrium.

4.
Ore is crushed and blended to a
consistent ore grade before it is
sent to the Mill.

5.
Ore is milled to a fine consistency
and a high-grade rare earth
concentrate is produced by a
flotation process.

6.
A proprietary multi-stage chemical process
liberates rare earths from the concentrate, for
later separation into individual elements and
products. Both bastnasite and monazite
minerals can be cracked in this process.

7.
A heavy rare earth concentrate is then
produced, which can be processed into highpurity, custom engineered heavy rare earth
materials at other Molycorp facilities.

8.
Other rare earths such as Cerium,
Lanthanum, Neodymium, and
Praseodymium are separated and
purified into various products.

9.
Wastewater produced in the separations
process is treated for re-use, and brine
(salt & water) is recovered from the
wastewater.

10.
The chloralkali plant converts brine into HCl and NaOH,
both of which are used in the rare earth separation
process. This helps to minimize the environmental
footprint of rare earth production and reduce
production costs at Mountain Pass.

11.
This high efficiency power technology also helps to reduce
An onsite Combined Heat and Power plant, fueled by clean-burning
the environmental footprint of the facility and lower
natural gas, provides reliable, low-cost, and highly efficient power and
production costs at Mountain Pass.
steam across the Mountain Pass facility.

12.
Water is removed from non-rare
earth mine tailings, making it
available for re-use, and tailings
are then converted into a paste.

13.
Paste tailings are then deposited in
layers that solidify, an environmentally
friendly technology that eliminates the
need for a “tailings dam.”

14.
Wastewater from multiple Mountain Pass
plants is sent for treatment onsite…
Wastewater
from various
plants

16.
In another innovative recycling process, wastewater is
converted into the chemical reagents used for rare earth
separation. This reduces waste, lessens the need to ship
chemical reagents to the facility by truck, and helps to
reduce production costs.